Three Hundred Games & Pastimes - complete online book

A Book Of Suggestions For Children's Games And Employments.

The simplest thing to do with a ball is to catch it; and the quicker one is in learning to catch well the better cricketer one will become. Ordinary catching in a ring is good, but the practice is better if you try to throw the ball each time so that the player to whom you throw it shall not need to move his feet in order to catch it. This teaches straight throwing too. Long and high throwing and catching, and hard throwing and catching (standing as close together as you dare), are important. There is also dodge-catching, where you pretend to throw to one player and really throw to another and thus take him unawares. All these games can be varied and made more difficult by using only one hand, right or left, for catching with.

A boy with a ball need never be very lonely. When tired of catching it in the ordinary way he can practise throwing the ball straight into the air until, without his moving from his place, it falls absolutely on him each time. He can throw it up and catch it behind him, and if he has two others (or stones will do) he can strive for the juggler's accomplishment of keeping three things in the air at once. Every boy should practise throwing with his left hand (or, if he is already left-handed, with his right): a very useful accomplishment. If it is a solid india-rubber ball and there is a blank wall, he can make it rebound at different angles, one good way being, in throwing it, to let it first hit the ground close to the wall's foot. He may also pledge